Lecture 4

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY (SOC101) Professor Robert Brym DATE: September 30 LECTURE 4: Socialization To behave as a human being, one has to socialize with other people Socialization is the process of learning culture and how to interact with others Rene Spitz`s experiment on the effects of socialization or the lack thereof: o He compared children who were raised in an orphanage to those raised in a nursery attached to a women`s prison (both were hygienic and provided good food etc.) o The orphans were cared for by six rotating nurses and had less human contact as a result, while the ones in the nursery were cared for individually by their mother and were raised in an active social setting o At 9-12 months, he found the orphans had higher occurrences of infections, which led to a higher death rate o By two years old, all the children in the prison nursery were walking and talking, but only 8% of the orphans Studies show the same for adults- those who have very little social contact tend to have a weakened immune system Social depravation: depriving of social stimuli Without socialization, we do not reach our full human potential Sociobiolog